Barbara D. Livingston
Alpha (6) puts on a late surge and gets to the wire in time to finish in a Travers dead heat with Golden Ticket.
Unlike in 1874, when the two combatants who dead-heated for first in the Travers Stakes – Attila and Acrobat – staged a run-off the same day to decide the winner, there was no such exercise conducted this year.
Instead, Alpha and Golden Ticket – the two horses who dead-heated for first in last month’s 143rd edition of the Travers Stakes at Saratoga – will have a rematch in Saturday’s Grade 2, $1 million Pennsylvania Derby at Parx Racing. They will be joined in the starting gate by six other 3-year-olds, only one of whom has won a graded stakes.